This Zach Braff story is still in the news today, and I’m going to keep using this screencap to accompany it as long as it is. So yesterday, The Hollywood Reporter reported exclusively that Braff had found “financing” for his Kickstarted movie, Wish I Was Here, at Cannes. A lot of people were angry, thinking Braff had been misleading in asking fans to fund his movie to keep from having to take industry money with creative strings attached, and then seeming to turn around and take industry money anyway. It would’ve been easy, and more lucrative, for me to try to stoke outrage in that regard when I reported on it, but I didn’t, because it didn’t seem to me that Braff had specifically broken any promises, and because I’m terrible at making money.

Today Braff tried to clarify what kind of funding he’s getting from Worldview Entertainment. Basically, it all goes back to something called Gap Financing, which I imagine your mom knows all about. (*looks over at joke writers, gives confused shrug*)

— The story out there about the movie being fully funded by some financier is wrong.

I have said on here and in every interview I’ve done on this project that the film would be fully financed from 3 sources:

My Kickstarter Backers

My own money

Pre-Selling foreign theatrical distribution.

Those three amounts will bring us to a budget of around 5 to 6 million dollars.

— Nothing about the making of this movie has changed. This movie is happening because backers funded it.

This film would not be happening without my backers. The traditional way is to have a financier put up the money and then sell the foreign rights. What I did, was to say to my fans, “If you and I provide the capital, we don’t need some rich dude dictating how we make the movie; we can then go sell foreign distibution [sic] and we’ll be all the way to our goal. Are you interested in that? So far 38,455 people have said yes.

— What happened today is that a financial company agreed to fill in the gap between what Kickstarter backers have funded and what I have put in, and what the movie will actually cost. Shooting could not happen without this.

When you pre-sell foreign distribution, you don’t get that money for some time. So you need to go to a company to provide something called “Gap Financing”. They are essentially a bank. Loaning us the “gap” between what we’ve raised together and what we need to actually make the movie. I have no idea where a 10 million dollar number came from but it is wrong and a lie.

— This loan is secured against proceeds generated by selling the foreign rights to the movie. That’s been the plan all along.

This loan, helps us start! We’re opening an office and casting and we’re fully under way. We couldn’t be doing that without “Gap Financing” to cover our… (wait for it) gap. As these foreign sales are occurring as we speak at the Cannes Film Festival, you will likely be hearing more and more about them. It is good for us! More eyes on our movie.

If I’m interpreting this correctly, it means the money he got from Worldview Entertainment was gap financing, essentially, a loan. I don’t want to sound conspiracy-minded, but it does seem strange that he never mentions the company by name. But then he also spelled “distribution” wrong, so perhaps that was just another function of poor editing. But if he’s telling the truth, it would be slightly misleading to say he’s “taking money” from “the industry,” if all he’s doing is getting a loan to cover what he’s eventually going to make selling the rights. God, I’m bored already.

In any case, for as much as we’ve talked about the financing for this film, we better end up seeing that money on screen, and I don’t mean in the form of Josh Gad (whose presence seems to scream “we couldn’t afford Jonah Hill”). I’m talking Truckasaurus, and dancing hookers. Granted, I have no idea what $5 to $6 million buys you, but when I think “wealth” I picture hookers and Truckasaurus.

On one hand I don’t really understand what Zach Braff is doing anymore. The Veronica Mars one went out with such little fuss. On the other hand, it seems like the Hollywood Reporter and a lot of other sites are just trying to find a way to attack him. So which is right? Who knows?

Yeah I think the tone of his “some rich dude” comment has everything to do with the people who hate his Kickstarter campaign in the first place. The feeling that he is trying to promote himself as just some regular dude trying to make it in Hollywood and not a millionaire looking to get someone to pay him to do this movie instead of paying for it himself. There is nothing wrong with him asking for money or backers or help with the project, it is the way he is asking.

Most likely, the investor providing the gap funding, or “bridge loan,” doesn’t need or want the publicity–or the phone calls and emails from everybody else who has an idea for a screenplay but doesn’t want to have to answer to The Man, man.

In fact, the loan covenants in these deals sometimes include nondisclosure for that very reason.

Or, you know, he actually is fronting the project with his own money, but doesn’t want to admit it. Even more likely, the more I think about it.

Worldwide Entertainment was already mentioned in the Hollywood Reporter story, and if it that was wrong, you’d think Braff would’ve mentioned it in a statement put out specifically to refute the inaccuracies in that same report.

just sounds like a bridge loan. finance that pays for more financing. i’m guessing the key difference is the collateral is future funding rather than a piece of the movie itself. i dont really know much about hollywood financing tho.

either way, i’m really hoping this movie is a total turd. not because i care about zach braff, but because i want to see the tens of thousands of kickstarter backers become enraged and demand their money back. or just feel like an idiot for prepaying to see a shitty movie many years in advance.

I see nothing wrong with what Braff did. I mean his movie most likely won’t be any good but that might be aside the point. I bet if Wes Anderson or Spike Jonze did this for an indie flick they’d be getting a whole lot less shit.